Home Health & Hospice Week

A challenge to one state’s Certificate of Need law has cleared its first legal hurdle.

Federal District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves last month allowed a Mississippi lawsuit from a physical therapist to proceed, reports The Picayune Item newspaper. In the suit, PT Charles ‘Butch’ Slaughter argues that the state’s CON law for home health allows large companies to monopolize the market at the expense of patient needs. Slaughter sought to expand his PT practice by offering services in the home during the pandemic, but was blocked by the CON law.

In his order denying the state’s motion to dismiss the suit, Reeves notes that “it is no secret that significant financial interests are at stake when it comes to CON laws,” according to the Item. “Without the market competition that normally regulates businesses’ behavior, the monopoly can charge otherwise unsustainably high prices for otherwise unsustainably mediocre products,” the judgment says.

“We are thrilled that the court recognized that the government shouldn’t be in the business of reducing access to health care to line the pockets of powerful industry insiders, especially during a global pandemic,” says the attorney representing Slaughter, Aaron Rice with the Mississippi Justice Institute.